Friday, On The Pond

Friday dawned clear, bright and breezy. The weatherman informed us that the day would be mild, the last such day for while. Since I had the day off, Treebeard and I decided it would be a good day to head to the Millpond and do a little paddling.
We were right :)

Loads of turtles were out basking. Most were very skittish so I had to zoom in to get a shot.

Red maples grow on old cypress and tupelo stumps out in the pond. The flowers create a nice contrast with the gray of the Spanish moss.

This beaver lodge has been in more or less constant use for at least the past 30 years.
Every once in a while it will be empty for a year or two, but then some enterprising couple will move in and fix it up again. It, like all the other lodges on the pond, is a great place to find basking snakes in the warmer months.

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Species list from Friday:

Insects: Honeybee, Apis mellifera; and others that we didn't take the time to ID

Amphibians: Spring peeper, Pseudacris crucifer crucifer; Brimely's chorus frog, Pseudacris brimleyi; Southern leopard frog, Rana sphenocephala utricularia

Reptiles: American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis; Northern black racer, Coluber constrictor constrictor; Yellow-bellied slider, Trachemys scripta scripta; Eastern painted turtle, Chrysemys picta picta; assorted Cooters, Pseudemys sp.

Mammals: Eastern gray squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis; Nutria, Myocastor coypus

Birds: (Order in which they were first observed)
Tree swallow
Canada goose
fish crow
red-shouldered hawk
red-tailed hawk
eastern phoebe
Carolina wren
winter wren
yellow-rumped warbler
wood duck
American black duck
American wigeon
turkey vulture (143 at once!!)
black vulture
mallard
bald eagle
ring-necked duck
pintail
killdeer
ring-billed gull
goldfinch
purple finch
green-winged teal
ruby-crowned kinglet
downy woodpecker
red-bellied woodpecker
white-breasted nuthatch
eastern bluebird
hooded merganser
hairy woodpecker
great blue heron
pileated woodpecker
American robin
Carolina chickadee
common grackle
barred owl
sharp-shinned hawk
northern flicker
golden-crowned kinglet
pied-billed grebe
belted kingfisher
redwing blackbird
pine warbler